“Grab Bag,” paintings by Harriet Moore Ballard

By Frederick Nicholas

LA AURORA Grab.Bag

Harriet Ballard’s art is known in San Miguel, as well as in Cleveland, Ohio, where she has a home, and on the east coast of the United States where she exhibits in Lyme and Stonington, Connecticut, and in Watch Hill and Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a BA degree from Chatham University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Arts, and a Masters of Fine Arts from the Instituto Allende in San Miguel. Her work hangs in the New Britain Museum of American Art, a regionally know and distinguished museum outside of Hartford, Connecticut. Ballard is a colorful abstract painter influenced by early twentieth century modernists like Braque, Matisse, and Ben Nicholson, but she quickly adds her own twenty-first century fascination with contrasts and opposites, and the culture of Mexico. For example, in the works on display in the Fábrica Aurora, there are many examples of structured images from her everyday domestic and traveling life, such as representations of bowls, tables, cats, and sail boats, juxtaposed alongside random and totally abstract markings like wild, squiggly lines and ridged grids. Ballard calls these images and markings her “Grab Bag” of ideas that become the subjects of her art. The combining of these items in various mediums brings a tension to her work that makes the paintings seem to move about, in some cases, moving right off the wall toward the viewer. Add to this grab bag her strong colors, seen in the background or directly up front. Then mix in with some of the construction disciplines Ballard learned from building two houses on Terraplen, and her paintings become both balanced and grounded in technique, while soaring in the free expression of her ideas. Additionally, many of her paintings from the past decades can be seen on her web site, harrietmooreballard.com. Harriet Moore Ballard exhibits a variety of paintings, collages, and chine colle prints in the Fábrica Aurora, Saturday, February 3, continuing until March 31. The exhibits can be seen in gallery La303 in the Fábrica Aurora.